Still in the first half of The Orchard Keeper, I continue to encounter these rare and lovely words. Palpitant I guessed the meaning, because it seemed related to palpitate, but this suffix was new to me. Palpitant - marked by trembling or throbbing. Accipitral - resembling that of a hawk. What luxury, to have such …
new words – coruscant
This one made me think of crepuscular, but it is almost the reverse of that, closer to lucent. Coruscant - shining, brilliant Still in The Orchard Keeper, only a couple pages from the previous post. Here is the sentence: "Through the leaves of the hardwoods he could see the zinc-colored roof of the church faintly …
new words – brogan and moiling
Another two for the price of one sentence. It's worth mentioning that all these posts so far have come from within only thirty pages or so of the same book. Brogan - a coarse work shoe reaching to the ankle. Moiling - the first definition is requiring hard work, but McCarthy uses the second definition: …
new words – murrhine
Cormac McCarthy is one of many authors known to make up words, either by sticking two separate words together, or by using them in unusual ways. This is one example. Murrhine means of, relating to, or made of murra, which is a material thought to be of semiprecious stone or porcelain used to make costly …
new words – rondelay
again from The Orchard Keeper, this is an alternate spelling of roundelay, which is a poem or song with a regularly recurring refrain. When it contains the words round, and delay, one can almost anticipate this meaning, especially given the context of the scene it was describing. Here is the tail end of a long …
Jonas David 